Fedele Fedeli - Physician

In 1851 he had taken up the post of medical director of the Montecatini spa.

As director of the Montecatini spa, Fedeli stood out not only for his tireless activity in promoting and valorizing the beneficial effects of hydrothermal treatments, but above all for his studies on the action and effects of water therapy and anthrotherapy, with which he contributed decisively to the transition from the empirical to the scientific phase of thermal therapy.

In collaboration with Paolo Savi, geologist at the University of Pisa, he published Storia Naturale e Medica delle Acque Minerali dell’Alta val di Nievole e speciale di Montecatini (1870), in which the origins and properties of the various waters were studied in depth, reporting numerous clinical examples treated and observed by Fedeli himself. The two scholars also disseminated the healing effects of the Bagni springs in Italy and abroad through pamphlets and newspaper articles, so much so that, already at that time, the fame of Montecatini attracted holidaymakers from Italian and foreign countries.

Thanks to him, Montecatini became a hydrotherapy resort of primary importance, very popular.

He was the author of interesting scientific publications, so much so that he can be counted among the precursors of modern medical hydrology[1].

Fedeli belonged to numerous scientific societies and received various honors.

He was an ordinary doctor and consultant to the Grand Ducal House and subsequently an ordinary consultant to Vittorio Emanuele II and before Pietro Grocco he was the doctor of the "curista" Giuseppe Verdi.

On February 28, 1876 he was appointed Senator of the Kingdom. With this title, the bust depicting him together with other illustrious figures who have made the most recent history of Montecatini is remembered in the Town Hall.